Horizons
by Shadow Nashira
Summary: Part of These Unbroken Threads 'verse. Takes place pre-canon. Gabriel, in disguise as the Trickster, comes across a serial killer and his brothers' vessels in Blue Earth, Minnesota.


**Title:** Horizons

**Fandom:** Supernatural/SGA  
**Character(s)/Pairing(s):** Gabriel, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Pastor Jim, original male character  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Warnings:** Brief descriptions of violence  
**Notes:** This occurs parallel to the events in the first chapter of These Unbroken Threads (a crossover between SPN and SG-1), though it's not strictly necessary to read that first to be able to understand this piece. This is based purely in the Supernatural world and only labelled a crossover by virtue of the fact that it's set in the same 'verse as These Unbroken Threads. The crossover gets only a passing mention.

**Summary:** Gabriel, in disguise as the Trickster, comes across a serial killer and his brothers' vessels in Blue Earth, Minnesota.

Gabriel places the finishing touches on the trap laid out for the money-laundering businessman, and as an afterthought, snaps into existence a stack of photos onto the kitchen table of the man's house, where the wife will discover evidence of her husband's affair with his secretary. He doesn't bother staying to witness the results of his actions, instead taking himself across the country to Indianapolis for some sugar cream pie and strawberry shortcake.

He works his way leisurely up towards Lake Michigan and around to Chicago, where he spends several days amusing himself with a high school teacher who thinks he can get away with molesting his students, a man abusing his dogs, and a diner which serves some horrific cheesecake. Seriously, who makes cheesecake that bad?

By the time he reaches Madison, he's _bored_. Gabriel considers hopping to another continent for a change of pace, maybe check in with Kali and see if the goddess is still mad at him for the stunt he had pulled with Anansi several months ago.

He turns a corner on the street, intending to do just that, when his eyes catch on the newspaper stand in front of him. Without really knowing why, he snatches up a copy of the Chicago Tribune and moves off with a light push at the mind of the newspaper vendor.

_Greyhound crash injures 6_

_I-90 child killer strikes again_

_3rd warehouse raid this week by CPD for suspected drug trafficking_

_Man pleads guilty to DUI in driver's death_

He scans the front page once and is ready to throw the paper aside, but he returns to the second headline again and again until he finally turns to the indicated page and skims the article there. Three deaths of teenage boys in small cities and towns along I-90 over the past six weeks, each body mutilated with knife wounds and dumped in alleyways.

He stops in the middle of the street, scowling down at the paper as people walk around him obliviously.

Gabriel tells himself that he's just bored and needs something to do.

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Being an archangel and the Trickster doesn't mean Gabriel can locate a random human with just a snap of his fingers when he doesn't have any information to go on, but he _can _obtain said information and use it to search in ways the police aren't capable of. A break-in to the morgue to lay a hand on the latest victim's corpse, and he can sense the wretched essence of the man who killed the boy still lingering. Then he's off, skipping from place to place along the highway at lightning speed, brushing through thousands of souls going about their lives.

It's only the fact that he's examining everyone so closely that the two incandescent presences even register at all. As it is, they metaphorically smack him in the forehead, followed a moment later by the stink of a third soul, the original human he had been hunting down.

Gabriel comes to a stop in Blue Earth, Minnesota.

Absurdly, he thinks that his brothers have found him, but logic sinks in an eye-blink later. One brother is locked away in Hell, and the other sequestered himself deep within Heaven. They can't be here.

The vessels. Of course.

He stays away from them, because he's been hiding on Earth for millennia and he knows better than to slip up just because he's curious.

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Who the hell is he kidding?

Dean Winchester, the elder one, walks along the dusty pavement next to the motel as if he owns it. The teenager is alert, unconsciously watching for danger despite the deserted night-time surroundings. Cloaked, Gabriel absently licks a cherry-flavoured lollipop as he follows Michael's vessel into the gas station convenience store.

There's nothing outwardly special about the kid as he rifles through the chips stand, but Gabriel knows what he's looking at, and the soul glows luminously in his senses like his brother once did as General of Heaven's army. The only things missing are three pairs of golden wings blazing from his back, wings that once cradled younger siblings protectively.

Homesickness washes over him in a wave, but Gabriel shrugs it off irately and moves himself to the other Winchester brother a short distance away in the motel room, passing through the wards easily. Lucifer's vessel is even younger, and gleams brilliantly like the Morningstar once did before he Fell, but there's a vein of darkness threading through the brightness, foreshadowing the beginning of the end.

_This is destiny, Gabriel. We've been following a plan that was set in stone ever since our Father shaped humanity_, Michael's voice murmurs through his head in a memory of a conversation they had, back when Gabriel the Messenger was still young, naïve and_ believed_.

That was a very long time ago.

This was a waste of time, Gabriel thinks. What did he hope to find here other than confirmation that Dean and Sam Winchester will bring on the Apocalypse as foretold? He is the Trickster now, a pagan god, and the prophecies of another religion don't concern him.

On that thought, he reaches out to the serial killer he tracked to this city, vanishes from the motel room –

– and lands right outside in the parking lot of the very same motel, just in time to witness the large man wrap an arm around Dean Winchester's throat.

The teen drops the bag containing his purchases, hands going instinctively to the arm choking him, scrabbling ineffectively. His attacker – tall and easily three times his size – tightens his hold, lifting Dean clear off the ground as the youth gasps for breath.

Knowing what Gabriel does, what seems like coincidences are never just coincidences. He thinks back to what led him to pick up that newspaper this morning, what led this human to pick this particular area for his next victim, what led the Winchesters to choose this specific motel. A thousand random chances to bring them all here.

Michael's vessel being murdered by a psycho doesn't exactly fit into the Big Plan, but for all he knows they'll survive the encounter somehow. Or Gabriel's presence and intervention is meant to be the fail-safe that allows everyone to keep going on their merry apocalyptic way.

Just to be contrary, Gabriel wants to wash his hands of this mess he's somehow found himself in, but as he watches Dean Winchester's face start turning blue, he recalls the victims' mutilated bodies.

All of this goes through his mind in a matter of seconds, and he makes a snap decision.

Interfering directly with the conflict in any way, even conjuring an illusion, is risky and will draw undue attention to himself without a lot of prior preparation which he doesn't have time for now. Mentally congratulating the kid when he manages to land a kick in the man's groin that loosens the chokehold, Gabriel spreads his consciousness out, searching for the closest suitable candidate.

He bypasses the gangly teens manning the motel and gas station, moving on to the next building. A church and a pastor.

If that's not someone sending him a message, he'll give up his sweets for a week.

By the time the pastor he'd nudged awake reaches the scene and chases off the psycho, Sam Winchester is crouched next to his brother, crying hysterically, and Dean – well, the twisted arm and blood-drenched concrete don't bode well.

He'll be fine, though. It's the Plan, after all.

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Time is not linear. Time is a mass of bundled threads, splitting for every major decision made and not made. Some lead to diverse futures, others loop back on themselves. There are endless possibilities and opportunities.

The Winchesters are different. Their paths are fixed and predetermined. Deviating decisions always somehow circle back to the same ending.

Despite knowing this, he still lets himself follow Dean Winchester's imprint on time; past, present and future.

_" – angels are watching over you – "_

_Firefirefirefirefirefirefire _

_"I had one job, and I screwed it up."_

_No no no no no no no no no no no no_

_" – figured that much, I mean what are you?"_

_" – Detriot."_

He doubles back when everything combusts into nothingness, and finds himself at a crossroads, one of countless others. Beyond him, he watches the white-hot burn of the inevitable, all paths leading ahead to the same conclusion. Brilliant, gleaming flames blanket the distant horizon, the world cleansed and purged, Paradise brought upon Earth, exactly as was prophesised.

Feeling impossibly exhausted, he turns away, and stops when something flickers at the corner of his eye. Squinting, he nudges at the thread, and it nearly snaps, but a path opens up beneath his feet eventually. Bemused, he looks to where it ends.

Instead of a burning horizon, it's a blue ocean, shiny metal spires reaching tall into the clear skyline and a soothing voice murmuring _welcome home, child_.

The vision disappears as quickly as it appeared, and no amount of urging makes the path resurface.

_Free will is an illusion, little brother._

He dismisses it, crushing any stirrings of _hopefaithbelief_.

Enough time wasted on the Winchesters. He has a serial killer to exact payback on.


End file.
